A little more about "T"

Somehow, using K's first initial to refer to him in those months before his name was public wasn't as awkward as it is with the girls. ;) We still refer to Krassi as "K-man" or just "K" in the same way we often call Owen, our first-born, "O." But "T" and "B" just doesn't quite work the same way...but it's the best we've got, so we'll run with it.

"T" is living in the same orphanage that Krassi grew up in. She first had a presence in our life almost a year ago when I printed off the photos of the children from Krassi's previous orphanage who were currently available for adoption. We kept these little print outs on the side of our refrigerator as a visual every-day reminder to be praying for them - asking God to bring them families.

I was NOT expecting Matt to talk to me one night in October letting me know that he was wondering if we might be T's family.

Um, nope. [was my internal response] Yes, we do special needs around here, but there are special needs, and then there are special needs. And besides - she appears to have epilepsy! Can we really care for two children who deal with seizures on a regular basis??? And "massive destruction of the brain matter" sounds scary, doesn't it? Yes, Krassi was/is delayed...seriously delayed...but he continues to amaze us with his ability to learn new things and understand concepts, and we have no reason to believe that continued forward progress, however slow, will be part of his life. I don't get that from reading the little bit of information we had about "T."

However, I've also learned that when God is talking to Matt, it's in my best interest to be listening, too, because that's often one way He speaks to me. So we spent weeks in prayerful listening.

It's funny how something that can at first seem very scary can completely change as you become increasingly convinced that this is the path God has set before you. One Sunday afternoon in November as Matt and I were talking after church that morning, we realized that we both had heard things in the sermon that made us immediately think that, yes, we were to go ahead and move toward bringing T into our family, and as we talked together, we realized that the time to start was now and not "sometime."

The first step was slightly more convoluted than we had expected. We contacted our primary adoption agency from Krassi's adoption, and our contact there spent a few weeks looking to find T's file since it wasn't currently active (as far as I understand, they cycle through a few months of availability, and the the files revert back to the child's country), including one that looked really close, but wasn't *quite* close enough for us to be sure it was T. Then she found her, and with that we were given her full file - more (and updated) photos, and instead of just the paragraph about her that you may have read already here, we got two pages and a bit more of in depth information about tests that have been done, information about her birth, and other assessments. Recognizing that many things get lost in translation, and that international medical files are just...different...than the ones we're used to here, which means we take everything, good and bad, with a good dose of salt, we were very excited by many things we read in her file.

First of all, it is obvious that T is a little girl who will likely never progress beyond the level of a one or two month old infant. It's funny that now as I'm writing this, I *have* a one month old infant who requires a lot of care, but is also truly a delight to smother with kisses and to rock and bounce throughout the day. And night. (That's as good an excuse as any to share an updated photo of Gloria, right?)

Leah holding Gloria.

T reportedly spends much of her time sleeping, and has difficulty waking up. She does have an abnormal EEG, but it appears, from the description (which means something to us now that we have some understanding of epilepsy) that her seizure activity has a very different pattern than Reuben's. While Reuben is mostly steady for days at a time, and then has a really bad run of pretty intense seizures over the course of a day, T's appear to be more regularly present, but none of them develop into full generalized seizures; instead they appear to be "absense" type seizures. Yes, definitely still seizures, but seizures requiring a very different level of care than Reuben's do. We won't have to be concerned about falls for T (who does not stand, or even sit), and her seizures don't appear to be the type that involve cessation of breathing the same way Reuben's do.

T has a number of other health challenges, all of which I figure we'll figure out how to deal with as we go - a few we'll need to be able to hit the ground running with (she's currently fed with a NG tube, thanks to a family here in the States who is paying for special formula for her. I don't know how to use or maintain a NG tube!! But I will.)

One of the most exciting parts of the report to me was that T is reported to respond positively to somebody touching her and somebody talking to her!!! She will try to wake up, and will try to smile when someone interacts with her in a positive way.

Is that not incredible? Somewhere, buried inside that damaged body and damaged brain, is a  person who wants to be loved. And I think that's one thing that drives us toward this. Not a single one of us on this planet is a perfect specimen of the human race, but every single one of us has been created uniquely, individually, and purposefully by God. T is a person who deserves to know love, and T has a reason to be on this earth, because "...God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God." (1 Corinthians 1:27-29) I have the feeling that if we are listening, paying attention, T just might have as much (or more) to give us than we have to give her.